Graves Haydon Thompson, PhD

Graves Haydon Thompson, PhD

Biography: Graves Haydon Thompson (1907-2003) was professor of ancient languages at Cumberland University in Lebanon, Tennessee, from 1931 to 1939. Thompson returned to his alma mater, Hampden-Sydney College, in 1939 to teach Latin, Greek, German, and French and to begin a career that formally ended with his "retirement" in 1977 although he continued to teach classes until 1993, serving on the faculty longer than anyone else in the history of the college. During those years he also taught English etymology, art history, and analytical geometry. Thompson single-handedly introduced fine arts to the Hampden-Sydney curriculum, first with art history and then music appreciation. For 30 years, he sustained and extolled the fine arts at Hampden-Sydney College both in and outside the classroom. Thompson received a BA from Hampden-Sydney College and an MA and PhD from Harvard University. In 1977, Thompson served as president of the Classical Association of the Middle West and South and wrote the history of the Southern Section. Thompson authored Ovid: Selections from Ars Amatoria and Remedia Amoris (privately published, 1953, 1958; reprinted by Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, 1997).

In his Handbook of Latin Literature H. J. Rose states, "Didactic Poetry had already been tried often enough, and sometimes it had been mildly humorous; Ovid hit on the brilliant plan of making it amatory, and thus achieved a masterpiece, never equaled in its own kind."